1989
Tim Berners-Lee proposes the web
Berners-Lee writes a paper entitled Information management: a proposal that envisages a system of interlinked documents that would be stored in a variety of locations, and contain non-hierarchical links to one another. These documents could be looked at using a 'browser' application, which would open the internet to potential mass use.
1991
The web is born
The first web pages begin to appear. At first they are of limited general appeal, but the system has become a reality.
1993-94
Browsers develop
The web's transition to the mainstream is helped by the appearance of Mosaic, an intuitive, user-friendly browser, in 1993, and then a year later by Netscape Navigator, which attains an 80% share of web browser usage by 1996.
1996
Internet Explorer 3.0
Internet Explorer 3.0 is provided free of charge with Windows 95, a practice known as 'bundling' that later brings Microsoft to the attention of anti-monopoly bodies in the US and EU. With its massive market dominance and tendency to favour Microsoft's own applications such as Media Player, there comes a de facto influence on emerging web technologies; if it doesn't work on IE, it doesn't work for most users. The web is at risk of becoming a proprietary technology.
1997
Before Google, sites such as Yahoo! created searchable directories of websites, but Google's focus on technology and indexing gives the impression that it is a gateway to the whole web.
1998
Blog comments
Blogging emerged in the mid-1990s but the launch of Open Diary in 1998 is a watershed because it is the first significant platform to encourage reader responses or comments on individual blogposts.
Monica Lewinsky
When the Drudge Report, a gossipy news blog, breaks the story on 17 January of then US president Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, its headline is "Newsweek kills story on White House intern", reflecting the impotence of offline media to control the news agenda in an online world.
2001
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is founded as a "multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia", to which anyone can contribute, and which anyone can access. By 2014 the English-language version has about 4.5million entries.
2003
The great firewall
The Chinese government begins to pursue several initiatives to counter the potentially subversive influence of the open web, including this system of web filters that allows the authorities to block individual web pages, whole websites, or any page referencing a particular term.
2004
The site, which only becomes generally accessible in 2006, helps millions of people become more active online but is not on the open web as many of its pages, for good reasons, are only accessible to signed-in users.
2006
Google's Chinese censorship
The search engine compromises with the government in Beijing on the issue of censoring search results, in order to get access to the billion-strong Chinese market.
2007
iPhone
The iPhone, like Facebook, is another innovation that makes many people more active online, but at the same time draws them away from the open web, in this case into Apple's app ecosystem. Apps are small applications that may use the internet, or even web protocols, but are not usually web browsers.
2008
Google Chrome browser and Chrome OS
Google releases a suite of products including a freeware browser called Chrome, and an operating system that consists of the Chrome browser plus a set of web-based applications to replace traditional, locally installed software.
2009
Trafigura
The open web comes to the defence of old media in October, when blogs and tweeters reveal that the oil company behind a gagging order against the Guardian is Trafigura.
2010
WikiLeaks
In April, WikiLeaks makes the first release from the cache of documents it has received from Bradley Manning which includes video footage of a US army helicopter firing on civilians. Later that year, the US embassy cables make public a vast trove of diplomatic memos.
2011
Anti-WikiLeaks subpoenas and response
The US government responds to the WikiLeaks revelations by issuing subpoenas to Twitter and Google to reveal what they know about users suspected of involvement. Twitter reacts by informing the users. Elsewhere, a number of companies withdraw their services from WikiLeaks, including Visa, Paypal and Apple, which removes a WikiLeaks app from its store.
The Arab spring
Particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, Twitter and Facebook play a key role in the spread of revolutions that shake the Arab world over the year.
2012
Sopa, Pipa, Acta
The Stop Online Piracy act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) are two pieces of proposed US legislation that their proponents claim will protect copyright owners. Others say the effect will be web censorship. Wikipedia takes the threat so seriously that it goes on strike for a day. Both bills falter.
Two Twitter trials
The law around free expression on the web has been tested several times in the UK in recent years, with differing outcomes. In one case a trainee accountant is convicted of sending a menacing tweet about his local airport. The high court eventually overturns the sentence. The court also finds in favour of Lord McAlpine in a case against Sally Bercow, who had sent a tweet wrongly linking him to paedophile allegations.
2013
The NSA files
Classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, reveals a number of mass-surveillance programmes undertaken by the NSA and Britain's surveillance agency, GCHQ.
2014
Cameron's 'opt-in' censorship
David Cameron pushes for default content filters operated by internet service providers, with users able to request that they be lifted, saying it will protect children from pornography. Campaigner Cory Doctorow says it will fail in this, but succeed in establishing "a regime of unaccountable censorship". The opt-in version goes live.
